


Turn on the Bright Lights

by LikeSatellites



Category: K-pop, Kpop - Fandom, VIXX
Genre: Blowjobs, Bromance to Romance, M/M, Sexual Tension, accidentally cast in the same romcom, and sass!bean, are you intrigued, confused bottom!wonshik, confused bro! feelings are the best feelings, doing what they do, everyone's favorite pair of 93-line goobers, featuring marshmallow hard boy ravi, frotting ensues, general band fic, handjobs, sexually frustrated bros, that's right i said bottom!wonshik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeSatellites/pseuds/LikeSatellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wonshik lives by one code of honor. </p><p>The Bro Code. </p><p>But one day Wonshik is finally cast in his first drama. A romcom. A photographer in love with his model romcom. </p><p>And then Hongbin is also cast in his drama. </p><p>As the model. </p><p>Ft. hardboy bro aesthetics and repression</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn on the Bright Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this picture (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6f/f5/89/6ff5896c6905c6389560f108f8fd8e34.jpg) because puh-lease WonBin. Puh-lease. I see you. Also sorry for disappearing and appearing randomly on here. I've actually been working on this fic for over a year, but I never finished it even though I was literally obsessed with writing it in the beginning. But then I just felt bad for authorially cock-blocking them, so I finally sat down to finish it. Also, yet again AO3 has fucked with my formatting, so I'm sorry if the indentations are all wonky. Anyhow, please comment and kudos at your will, and let me know if you have any ideas for fics you want me to write. I literally live for your comments, and I do my best to reply

            It wasn’t quite raining yet, the day they told Wonshik he’d been cast.

            The clouds hung heavy over the Jellyfish building, swollen almost, even though they still looked delicate, long limbs of wispy gray stretching out in all directions.

            “Which role did I get? The blind friend? The chaebol’s son?” The chair he sat on was a cheap pleather, dark brown, and it squeaked under his much-more-expensive pleather shorts. Too much pleather. Their manager eyed Wonshik as another vaguely flatulent sound escaped from under his ass.

            “No, Wonshik. You got the lead. The photographer.”

            “It’s my first role,” Wonsik said, shifting again, as if his own manager didn’t know. The vague flatulence filled the silence between them once more.

            Their manager stared back at Wonshik with a gaze that said _I fucking know_.

            “Which…I’m sure you know,” Wonshik added, clearing his throat as he turned his gaze back to the window.

            A few of the clouds were beginning to part, less of a gray blanket over the sky and more like overstuffed pillows tossed into little heaps.

            “Do you want to turn it down? I know you’ve been wanting to do this for _ages_ and kept whining to me about how you _could not possibly wait any longer_ to act because even _Hakyeon_ has acted _multiple_ times, and _ugh_ if you have to sit alone in your little studio any longer, you will _really lose it_ and will send a bucket full of diss tracks to YG—”

            “I get it. I get it. Yes. I’ll take the role,” Wonshik cut in, cheeks pink and ears warming.

            “The story isn’t fully developed yet,” his manager continued, “but it looks like it has really great potential.”

            “I already agreed, okay, you don’t have to convince me more.”

            Wonshik adjusted his hat, flattening his hair down under it.

            “You look nervous.”

            “No, I’m not. I mean, I don’t. I’m not.”

            “You always fix your hat when you’re nervous.”

            “Or maybe I fix my hat because it’s in my face and needs to be fixed.”

            “Wonshik.”

            “Hyung.”

            Their manager slapped Wonshik in the face with the back of the script.

 

            It began raining the moment Hongbin collapsed down onto Wonshik’s bed, white t-shirt riding up to expose a thin strip of pale skin.

            “It’s raining,” Hongbin said, not even looking at the windows, just listening to the sounds of the droplets hitting the panes of glass.

            “Good call,” Wonshik said, stripping out of his pleather shorts, immediately put-off with them after the fart-seat incident. He stood there in his underarmor black spandex and debated just crawling into bed with Hongbin like that.

            Hongbin flicked his gaze up and lingered it on Wonshik’s legs.

            “You’ll probably have to put on some weight for this role,” Hongbin said.

            Wonshik’s face rumpled. “Weight like _weight_ or weight like weight?”

            Hongbin gave him the eyes, the eyes that said ‘if we weren’t bros, I’d talk shit about you behind your back.’

            “Like you’re supposed to be some tough shit, you know—”

            “I’m not tough shi—?”

            “And you have little scrawny legs. Like you look better in spandex than Jaehwan does, and we know how much he wishes he could dress in spandex.”

            “I look good in spandex?” Wonshik repeated, spinning around to preen in the foggy full-length mirror behind him.

            “Wonshik,” Hongbin said, giving Wonshik the voice, the one that sounded like ‘to clarify, if we weren’t bros, I’d text Gongchan pictures of your skinny ass in those pants right now with a judgmental emoji.’

            Wonshik was about to reply when Hongbin sat up sharply, holding up his palm facing Wonshik, as if the words _shut up, loser_ were written on his skin.

            “Hello?” Hongbin said into his phone. “What? Yes, this is he. Ah, hello, Sir. Oh. Oh? Oh?!” his little pink mouth shifted into a perplexed pout. “Um, I’m flattered? Yes. No. I mean, yes. That’s—No, I mean, I—yes, Sir.” He blinked at Wonshik as he listened. “What exactly is the—it’s a secret? No, not a secret, you’re right. A surprise then? How…lovely…no, that isn’t sarcasm, Sir, that’s just my voice. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Thank you agai—”

            _Click_.

            “Crazy bastard,” Hongbin said, flopping back onto the mattress, short veil of light auburn hair falling over his eyes.

            “Who was that? Wasn’t Hakyeon was it?” Wonshik clenched his fist at the window, hoping Hakyeon would sense his emotion from whever he currently was.

            “Hakyeon is crazy, but this guy is…what did you say the drama you were cast in is called?” Hongbin turned onto his stomach, palms resting under his chin, cradling his face up into the white light of the rain-filled sky.

            “Why? Who was that?” Wonshik dropped his fist dejectedly.

            “What’s it called?” Hongbin sat up at the edge of the bed and tugged at the waistband of Wonshik’s spandex pants, snapping it against his hip.

            “Something about focusing?”

            “You don’t know the name of your own drama?” Hongbin scoffed. “You know all the English words to Ludacris’ second album—”

            “I know his entire _discography_ …”

            “Point made.” Hongbin snapped his waistband again, and it stung in a vaguely pleasing way. “What’s it called, Wonshicris?”

            “My rapper name is Ravi,” Wonshik corrected, like Hongbin didn’t know, like this were some alternate universe where perhaps Wonshik worked in a coffee shop and Hongbin was a wealthy lawyer who thought he was above street urchins such as himself but-- “Are we not in a band? A band where I am a rapp—”

            Hongbin leaned in and bit Wonshik’s hip, causing him to screech and collapse back into the window. The glass was cold against his spine, but he didn’t move away.

            “It’s ‘Depth of Focus,’” Hongbin said.

            “And how do you know?” Wonshik stepped away from the window to reach forward and fiddle with the strands of hair hanging in Hongbin’s face.

            Hongbin looked murderous as he pushed the frizzy poofs of fringe back into place.

            “Because they want me to audition for the other lead.”

           

 

           

 

“But you’re not a woman,” Wonshik said, hours later, sitting next to Hongbin in their company van, their dark wash denim jeans brushed up against one another, almost the exact same color, except for the spot where Hongbin had ‘accidentally’ spilled bleach on his to make it different.

            “Obviously.”

            “But then how can you be the other lead? It’s a romantic comedy,” Wonshik asked, a question more for himself than anyone else.

            Inside his skull cavity, the fuses in his brain were firing repeatedly, the scene within his head akin to a civil war, one side firing off _Hongbin isn’t a woman_ and the other firing back _Does it matter do we care_ and then the return of _Hongbin cannot be a woman_ and the lingering, smoky blow back of _But if he were_ —

            He let that thought hang in the air a moment between himself and Hongbin, though again Hongbin himself was completely unaware. The thought was a malicious and potentially violent spirit, spirally towards Hongbin, hell-bent on whispering its false truths into Hongbin’s pretty skull.

            And then Hongbin put his headphones in and dismissed Wonshik’s useless inquiry with the soothing sounds of Park Hyo Shin.

            Damn that Park Hyo Shin.

           

 

            “Why does Hongbin get to sign a contract with Rick Owens? He is just the best friend character, isn’t he?” Wonshik cried from his makeup chair, as their manager explained their upcoming work schedules.

            “No, I’m the hot model,” Hongbin said, as a coordi lacquered his face with BB cream.

Wonshik flashed back to those early days of their career when Hongbin was his fictitious art piece, something Wonshik could cart around and show off because he was so naturally magnificent, and fans would laugh because obviously Hongbin was more than just a piece of art. He was more than a canvas for BB cream and hair gel that smelled like salt water and cantaloupe. Then he flashed back to the present and realized both his manager and the Hongbin in question were staring at him. Because he had just been complaining. He continued:

            “But _I’m_ the hot photographer.”

            “Photographers can’t afford Rick Owens,” Hongbin replied, nose held high in the air as the coordi painted white stripes of contour under his eyes.

            “He isn’t even your aesthetic! Hyung, he isn’t even Hongbin’s aesthetic! All of that black will wash him out!”

            “Wonshik, you need to calm down,” their manager sighed, rubbing his temples.

            “What do I get to wear?” Wonshik whimpered, as his own coordi approached to tsk at how tan his face had become after that single hour he’d spent signing fan signs last week.

            “A smock, you starving artist,” Hongbin said, smirking in the harsh dressing room lighting like one of those deep sea fishes with lures of light hanging between their eyes.

            “ _Hyung_ ,” Wonshik groaned, using his aegyo honorifics, tipping his head down as the coordi attempted to trace black rims around his eyes to make him look less miserable by accident and more miserable by choice. “He isn’t even—”

            “Say ‘aesthetic’ one more time, Wonshik, and I swear I’ll give every single snapback you own to charity.”

           

           

“Wait, why is there only half a script here?” Hongbin said, poking a freshly-lotioned finger at the pile of papers.

            “Because it’s a surprise,” the director said, lounging back in his pleather chair.

            He was a small man, with long hair very reminiscent of Triangle-era DBSK, with purple streaks at the ends and pieces that stuck out with gel here and there. He wore one of those pleated, long black Givenchy skirts that G-Dragon could sometimes pull off if everyone around him assumed he was slightly drunk when he got dressed. Everyone always assumed G-Dragon was at least partially drunk whenever he appeared in public. For the image.

            Wonshik longed for a drunk public persona.

            “A surprise for who?”  Wonshik asked the director wearily.

            “For _whom_ , Wonshik, dear,” the director corrected. “And it’s a surprise for everyone!”

            Hongbin slid his gaze over to meet Wonshik’s. This reminded them a little too much of the time Jaehwan and Hakyeon decided it would be a fun _surprise_ to put on black spandex and animal print to dance to Wonder Girls on national television.

            “How would you two rate your chemistry?” the director asked, leaning forward and framing his face with his hands eagerly.

            “Our chemistry?” Hongbin repeated, gaze still meeting Wonshik’s. “Like vocally or--?”

            “Have you ever seen each other naked?” The director plucked a clipboard off of the table and began checking off boxes.

            “Director, how is this relevant to—”

            “Did it ever make you _think_?”

            “Director, shouldn’t we instead—”

            “It’s only when the doors of perception are cleansed that you can truly—”

            “Sir, that’s a William Blake quote, and I don’t think—”

            “Let’s have you read the first scene.”

           

            “Oh, hyung,” Hongbin said, reading from his script, “I don’t pose nude.”

            “Well, there is a first time for everything,” Wonshik said, eyes glued to his script, so as to not make eye contact with lure-fish Hongbin.

            Wonshik could tell Hongbin was a flat two-seconds from snorting when he replied, voice quivering with unbroken laughs, “Oh, I’m not a virgin.”

            Wonshik dropped his script to the table and saw that Hongbin had done the same, and they were both staring blankly at their manager.

            Who was pretending to scroll though Instagram.

            His lips shaking at the corners.

            “Amazing,” the director breathed out, as if he’d been holding his breath during the length of their scene.

 

 

            “So let me get this straight,” Jaehwan said, sitting across from Wonshik at the café. Both of them had their ball caps pulled down low over their eyes, giant black turtlenecks pulled up to their chins, so only a sliver of their faces was showing.                 

            “You don’t even have to repeat it,” Wonshik said, dropping his face into his hands.

            “Are there even any other cast members?”

            “So far,” Wonshik paused, pretending to think hard about this answer. “No.”

            “Wonshikkie, you know what this sounds like, don’t you?” Jaehwan cooed, leaning forward to fiddle with the strings hanging from Wonshik’s sweater.

            “A really small budget television drama?” Wonshik ventured, sipping his Americano and wishing he could dump four cups of sugar into it instead of powering through the bitterness like a man.

            “Hm,” Jaehwan replied. “A very small budget filming of two attractive boys with no other cast members, and there is mention of nudity and se—”

            “Don’t say it, Jaehwan,” Wonshik begged, rubbing at his face with his clammy hands.

            “You’re shooting a po—”

            “-pular celebrity-filled drama,” Wonshik finished, flicking his gaze up and around the café to make sure no baby-minded Starlights were listening. He could not corrupt the baby Starlights.

            “Porn,” Jaehwan whispered between cupped palms.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wonshik hissed, “There is no pornography in Korea.” He craned his neck around, just in case the President was listening. “Especially not with….two…. _boys_.”

            “What are you talking about? You and me found a whole database of—”

            “Oh, would you look at that?” Wonshik stood up abruptly. “It’s time to go to Church, Jaehwan. Let’s go. Get on your robes.”

            “My what?” Jaehwan called out, following after Wonshik as he raced towards the exit, little bells jingling above their heads. “Wonshik, it’s Tuesday! What robes? What robes, Wonshik?!”

 

            “Today’s acting exercise consists of us locking you two into this dark shed,” the director said, holding open the door to the shed and gesturing them inside.

            Hongbin didn’t seem to question it, simply stepping inside and glancing around. “Where did you get this? This wasn’t here the other day.”

            “How long are we in this shed for?” Wonshik questioned, toeing at the creaky planks in the doorway.

            “I haven’t decided yet,” the director said, flipping his now-magenta-and-lime-green permed hair over his shoulder.

            “Seems like you haven’t really decided _anything_ concerning this dra—”

            “In you go, then,” the director hissed, shoving at Wonshik’s back and then slamming the door behind them.

            Hongbin had found a seat on a rusty old barrel and was trying to find cell service, hoisting his phone up towards the cracked ceiling beams.

            “So,” Wonshik said, pacing around the tiny square of space.

            “Sit down, Wonshik,” Hongbin said, barely looking up from his loading screen.

            “I mean, maybe we’re supposed to try to figure a way out,” Wonshik said, feeling a strange sensation of panic rising up inside his esophagus. He could feel Hongbin’s eyes on him like unexpected sunlight reaching through thick glass windows of the car, searing red lines on his forearms and neck.

            “The way out is the door,” Hongbin replied, tucking his phone back into his pocket when his Simba-stretch-towards-the-roof method didn’t succeed. “Just sit down.”

            “Is it hot in here?” Wonshik said, pulling at his black leather and mesh long-sleeved top.

            “Maybe if you didn’t dress for the _aesthetic_.”

            “If I didn’t dress for the aesthetic, who would I be?!” Wonshik cried, voice cracking as he dropped down onto a small bench, kicking up a cloud of dust that Hongbin promptly whisked away with a waving hand.

            “You would be Kim Wonshik, wearer of normal clothes, also sometimes rapper Ravi of VIXX,” Hongbin said, and suddenly his full gaze was on Wonshik, and Wonshik felt like someone had pried his mouth open and slid a funnel down to his tonsils and emptied two tons of sand into his body.

            He coughed, a small pathetic sound.

            “So this is a weird drama, huh?” Hongbin asked. “I mean, I didn’t even audition.”

            “You never need to audition,” Wonshik mumbled, staring down at his hands.

            “What does that mean?” Hongbin had that edge in his voice that Wonshik knew he would normally avoid, but, hey, they were locked in a set shed for the next forever or so.

            “It means you look like Lee Hongbin.”

            “I _am_ Lee Hongbin,” he said, running his tongue over his lips like he was about to launch into a tirade that would dry them out.

            “Exactly. You _look_ like _you_!” Wonshik waved his arms in Hongbin’s direction, partially gesturing and partially swatting away more dust.

            Hongbin stood, dust flying all around him dramatically in a mystical, potentially hazardous cloud. It was like the particles were magnetized to Hongbin’s body, following his movements, dramatizing them with their dark, smoky aura. Wonshik could identify with the dust cloud for a moment, knowing he himself was also magnetized to Lee Hongbin for unidentifiable reasons sometimes.

“And, what? That’s it? I got into VIXX because I _look_ like _me,_ I get picked for music stages because I _look_ like _me_ , and I get cast in random dramas because I _look_ like _me?_ ”

            “Y….es?” Wonshik said, voice small, unsure why this might be the wrong answer.

            Hongbin kicked at the bench under Wonshik, and it slid out from under him. Wonshik toppled to the floor, feeling his clothes becoming coated with dirt like he was a Shake n Bake chicken cutlet.

            Hongbin pressed the sole of his sneaker to Wonshik’s chest. Wonshik stared up at Hongbin as if seeing him for the first time.

            “Listen,” Hongbin gritted out, “I look like me, I sound like me, I dress like me, I _am_ me. I can’t help the way I am. You of all people should know that.” He pressed his foot a bit harder against Wonshik’s chest, and Wonshik’s eyes felt like they were bulging out of his skull. Or maybe oozing out. Oozing was probably a more accurate statement. He could feel like eyes oozing onto his cheeks.

            “You of all people should know why I,” Hongbin broke off. “Why I hate that. Why I hate what you just…I hate it, Wonshik.”

            Wonshik’s eyes continued to ooze onto his cheeks, over his top lip, around his jaw bone, trickling behind his ear.

            “You’re supposed to be my best friend,” Hongbin said, and Wonshik felt himself reaching for Hongbin’s pant leg like a lost child in a department store, grabbing for any and all women who could be his mother.

            “I,” Wonshik gurgled, unable to form any more words.

            Hongbin scoffed and removed his shoe from Wonshik’s chest. “I know who I am, Kim Wonshik. Do you know who you are? Behind the _aesthetic_ and diss tracks and Ravi?”

            “I am all of those things,” Wonshik whispered, still staring up at Hongbin, light streaming down from between the decrepit planks of the ceiling and lighting up the frizzy whisps of hair on Hongbin’s head. Like a frizzy, hideously angry angel with flared nostrils. “You can’t just ask a guy who he is. That’s kind of a big question.”

            Before he knew it was happening, Hongbin had dropped down over Wonshik’s body, straddling his thighs as he tugged at Wonshik’s leather and mesh shirt.

            “This isn’t you.” Hongbin tore at the mesh siding of the shirt, and it ripped like a load of cheap fishing net. “You used to wear Abercrombie.”

            “Everyone used to wear Abercrombie!” Wonshik defended, grabbing at Hongbin’s prying hands. “Please stop sitting on me!”

            “It’s for your own good!” Hongbin cried, hands now tucked up under the hem of Wonshik’s shirt, shoving the material up towards Wonshik’s neck. Hongbin’s hands were on Wonshik’s abdomen, soft, so unearthly soft, nails just long enough to tickle slightly where they grazed against Wonshik’s skin.

            “I’m warning you,” Wonshik said, though it was more of a beg, as Hongbin was now essentially pressed up against Wonshik’s crotch, his fingertips hot against Wonshik’s throat as he finally yanked the shirt over his head.

            Hongbin sat back on his haunches victoriously, panting, hair hanging limp in front of his eyes. 

            Wonshik lay beneath him, chest bare, goosebumps all over his tan skin, nipples definitely at least partially hard, also panting.

            “Well,” Wonshik breathed, “You win?”

            The door blasted open behind them, and the director launched through the doorway, applauding.

            “Oh, Bra- _va_ ,” he sang. “What a perfect teaser for the show.”

            Hongbin stood, tossing Wonshik’s tattered shirt over his shoulder, where it then landed over Wonshik’s face.

            “Show whatever creepy CCTV footage you took of that exchange to anyone, and I’ll rip that wig from your head on live television and _eat it_ ,” Hongbin growled.

            The director protectively reached for his head, cradling his wig under his palms.

            Hongbin pushed past the director in the doorway, and Wonshik slid the shirt down from his eyes to watch him walk away.

            Not because he wanted to _watch_ him. Just because Hongbin liked his dramatic exits, and they were always worth seeing.

            Not because Wonshik often watched Hongbin.

            “Are you getting up?” Their manager asked, toeing at Wonshik’s hip after a few moments of Wonshik staring up at the ceiling replaying Hongbin’s exit in his brain. “I don’t even want to think about how angry the coordi’s are going to be about that shirt.”

            “This is my shirt,” Wonshik groaned, slowly easing up to his feet.

            “You paid money for that shirt,” he repeated stonily.

            “It’s my—”

            “Get in the van, Wonshik,” Their manager sighed, shaking his head and pulling out his cell phone.

 

            Hongbin sat on the edge of Wonshik’s bed, watching clips of models during photoshoots.

            “Isn’t this the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show?” Wonshik asked, crawling like a worm towards Hongbin on the bed. “Is this really for research?”

            Hongbin slit his gaze to Wonshik from the side. “What, just because they’re tall, thin Western women in underwear, I can’t learn from them as models?”

            Wonshik swallowed thickly.

            “These models take kickboxing classes, acting classes, dance classes, and workout up to six hours a day to be able to do what they do,” Hongbin explained, voice even. “Looks aren’t everything.”

            “I didn’t say they were,” Wonshik said, dropping his hand onto Hongbin’s thigh.

            Hongbin’s slitted glare remained on Wonshik’s face, though he cast a brief glance down at the tan hand on his jeans.

            “Beanie, Beanerino, The Great BamBeano,” Wonshik whined, “Let’s be best friends again, okay? I know you’re worth much more than all that shit I said.”

            Hongbin breathed out wearily and nodded. “As long as you acknowledge it. Now let’s watch this whole fashion show until I know what smizing is.”

            “Oh great,” Wonshik said, as Hongbin pressed play, and they dropped back onto their backs, the laptop balanced on Hongbin’s stomach. “I love hours upon hours of mostly naked women.”

            Hongbin laughed and scooted closer.

 

           

            After fourteen hours on set, during which the director tore up his script three times after the poor, small intern had reprinted him a copy, Wonshik had successfully shot two scenes. One where he was sitting at a bar, pretending to sip some kind of sugar water concoction that they said looked like soju. He had reminded them he was of age to actually drink soju, but the director said he didn’t want Wonshik drunk on set (yet).

            The second scene, the one that took the majority of the fourteen hours, was the one where Wonshik was pouring over the photos he had taken of prospective models for his new shoot.

            They had, apparently, taken photos of Hongbin, along with around fifteen other guys, in just a tight pair of Calvin Klein undies. Wonshik was trying to peruse the images, picking them up, pondering them, smiling or frowning, but it was hard to stay serious when he felt so utterly pervy.

            “Can I just,” Wonshik said, waving the photos around like a lunatic, “Can I just look at fake pictures of dogs or something during the scenes from further away? Do you need to see that they are of naked dudes?”

            He cast a glance at manager hyung. “Won’t this...ruin my image?”

            Manager hyung snorted and picked up his Gameboy. “Image,” he scoffed.

            In all his years in VIXX, it wasn’t like Wonshik had never seen boys in tightie whities. In fact, he had probably seen his bandmates in more states of undress than dress. But, and he convinced himself this was the _character_ emerging from inside him, the more he stared at that photo of a greased up Hongbin, the more he felt it was _an attractive photo_. And not just in the ‘huh, this is a nice photo of you, bro’ way. In the, slip-this-under-my-pillow-for-the-lonely-nights kind of way.

            “Can I just,” Wonshik repeated, voice cracking, “get some puppies?”

            The director came over to rest his hand on Wonshik’s shoulder, leaning down to get into Wonshik’s periphery. “What’s wrong, Wonshik-ah? Starting to _feel_ something?”

            Wonshik sat up straight, rigid in his chair. “Tired,” he lied.

            “So exhausting to stare at photos of boys who don’t interest you at all, right?” The director said, riffling through the photos until Hongbin’s was on top. “I wish there had been more lighting in this photo. It’s definitely not the best in the bunch. Hongbin needs to learn to be more expressive with his—”

            “What’reyoutalkingaboutthisphotoistotallythehottestphotoareyoucrazy?”

            The director laughed lightly in Wonshik’s ear.

            “Perhaps you’re right.”

 

            “Hyung,” Sanghyuk sighed, hovering over their table, snapping an Instagram photo of their hot pot. “You’ve barely touched your fish balls.”

            “I’m not in the mood for balls today, Hyukkie.”

            “You ordered them,” Sanghyuk said, shaking his head and skewering some fish balls into the boiling pot of broth.

            “Hyuk, my child, can I ask you a question?” Wonshik asked, following up with a quick, “Bro to bro?”

            “You can ask me any question you want, hyung. And it doesn’t have to be bro to bro,” Sanghyuk laughed, popping a steaming skewer of fish paste into his mouth.

            “Do you ever listen to a song or watch a movie or something, and it reminds you of a place or a person or a moment?”

            “Sure. There are lots of songs that remind me of home. Things my parents would listen to and stuff. Or, you know, when I hear Hip Song, I think of our trainee days, and how dead we all were and how everyone hated me at first because I couldn’t sing or dance or pretty much do anything—”

            “We didn’t hate you,” Wonshik defended.

            “It’s okay, Wonshik. I would have hated me too. But I feel like after Hip Song, people trusted me more.”

            “It was all the gyrations,” Wonshik said, “They went to our heads.”

            “Whatever it was, I’m grateful.”

            Something inside Wonshik’s brain was firing off a sequence of _make joke_ , _we can make joke, to make joke and laugh everything normal now_.

            “It was the gyrations! Pelvises, am I right?”

            Sanghyuk stared at Wonshik, a skewer of fish balls steady in front of his face.

            “Is there something you want to talk to me about, Wonshik? Something that is perhaps plaguing you?” he asked, teeth ripping into the top fish ball.

            Wonshik cleared his throat and quickly one-shotted his glass of ice water, gagging on a few cubes of ice.

            “When was your first kiss?” Wonshik whispered, glancing around the restaurant nervously for fans or cameras.

            “The real answer or the made-for-Starlights answer?”

            Wonshik leaned in close. “The real answer.”

            “Middle school. She was two grades ahead of me.”

            “A _noona_ ,” Wonshik breathed out.

            “She was the manager of our soccer team.”

            “ _Manager_ noona,” Wonshik hissed between his teeth.

            “She brought me a Tupperware of sugared lemon slices after a game, and I said thanks, and she kissed me.”

            “ _Lemon slices_ ,” Wonshik moaned.

            “It was okay.”

            Wonshik was about to groan some more, but then his mouth snapped shut.

            “Okay? That’s it? Just okay? Your first kiss with a hot manager noona who brought you a luxurious snack was just okay?”

            “Yeah. I mean, we were young. And I didn’t really like her that way. Sure, she was hot, but she wasn’t my kind of hot.”

            “What do you mean your kind of hot? Isn’t hot just hot?” Wonshik grumbled, grabbing a skewer of fish balls and dunking them into hoisin sauce. “You know,” he tried to gesture with his hands cupped in front of his chest, but the skewer kept him from doing so and then he got brown sauce all down his shirt. There went another aesthetic shirt.

            “No, hyung. Different people are attracted to different things.”

            “Who gave you this wisdom,” Wonshik said, shaking his head.

            “When was your first kiss then?”

            Wonshik tried to keep chewing his mouth full of fish and sauce, but it was a struggle.

           

           

            _“Your lips definitely touched mine,” Hongbin laughs from his bar stool._

_Wonshik waves his bottle of Asahi beer in the air in front of Hongbin’s face. “Nuh uh. I am a champ at the paper passing game with the mouths.”_

_“I’m telling you,” Hongbin cries, shooting back something dark and cloudy in a small glass. “It wasn’t just paper I felt.”_

_“Then what do my lips feel like, huh?” Wonshik interrogates, wrapping said lips around the bottle and tipping it back until flat, bitter liquid trickled down his throat._

_“I dunno. It was only a split second and then Hakyeon grabbed my neck and made me keep passing.”_

_“What a pervert!” Wonshik bellows._

_Hongbin leans forward quickly, laughing, pressing his sweaty palm over Wonshik’s mouth. “Don’t you know the meaning of_ sneaking around _? We are being_ sneaky _.”_

_“Right,” Wonshik says, feeling his lips moving behind Hongbin’s soft skin._

_The bar is emptying now. It’s past two. It’s dark, but lights are coming on above them. It feels like time is stretching forward in front of them but also behind them at the same time, and Wonshik wants to stay where he is._

_Hongbin is standing off his stool in front of Wonshik’s face. He has his blue baseball cap pulled down over his face, but his soft, frizzy curls are still sticking out of the bottom and the back. Wonshik reaches up and fingers one of the curls. Hongbin’s eyes are dark in the dim lighting, his skin pale, almost too pale, to the point where Wonshik can trace the blue veins in Hongbin’s arms all the way from his wrists to his chest. Wonshik wants to stick him in the sun and let him breathe in the light, let it sink into those veins and swim all the way to reach Hongbin’s ventricles, the chambers of his heart._

_“Your hand is sticky,” he says instead._

_Hongbin stumbles forward, and Wonshik’s back hits the front of the bar as Hongbin’s hands land on his shoulders to catch his balance._

_“Your shirt is sticky,” Hongbin says, brushing his palms off on Wonshik’s chest._

_“Hot,” Wonshik replies, and it is. The bar is some place scattered away from the city, like a dungeon, like the inside of a mouth, everything covered in some sort of condensation, a basement structure with low hanging bare lightbulbs as the only light and ripped leather stools coated in various liquors._

_It’s summer now, and the boys have just three days off before new promotions start. It was Hongbin’s idea. It always is. Sneak away. Feel like kids for a damn second._

_“You’re drunk,” Hongbin says, grabbing the brim of Wonshik’s black cap and shoving it down to cover Wonshik’s face. It’s suddenly dark, and when drunk-conscious Wonshik lifts the brim back up, Hongbin is perched in front of one of the dangling low bulbs of light, and his curls are like a glowing halo around his face, and Wonshik’s drunk consciousness feels 50% like he has to burp up stomach acid and the other 50% feels like Hongbin is maybe the sexiest Jesus he has ever seen._

_Hongbin grabs the bottle of Wonshik’s beer from his hand and finishes it off, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Can’t handle your liquor.”_

_“Can’t handle you,” Wonshik says, and he knows he meant to say it in reverse. You can’t handle. Or something like that. Or maybe he meant to say it the way he said it._

_And then Hongbin is up in his space, hands on the bar on either side of Wonshik’s body._

_“I’ll tell you what your lips feel like,” Hongbin says. “Then will you believe me?”_

_“What?” Oh, he’s referring to the thing he said earlier._

_“Last call!” the bartender calls from where he’s dusting off bottles of something much too expensive for anyone who comes to his bar to purchase._

_More lights are coming on, and Wonshik feels that stretching again, this time inside his body. It’s like the feeling of a sudden chill, but not the cold. It’s the spasm, the tightening of muscles, the shaking. Wonshik is shaking, and he can feel Hongbin’s heat in front of him, and God it’s so hot._

_“Last call!”_

_“We have to head out,” Hongbin says, shifting as if to move away from Wonshik._

_“Wait,” Wonshik says, grabbing Hongbin’s shirt by the hem. “Tell me,” he slurs, “what they feel like.”_

_Hongbin laughs, and it’s like a chill again inside Wonshik’s chest cavity. Everything is spasming, shaking, and Hongbin is grabbing Wonshik’s cap and flipping it around so the brim is facing the back. Wonshik wants to protest because it probably looks so lame, and people will see his face, but then Hongbin does the same to his own hat, and okay he looks pretty okay with his curls all smooshed up under the canvas, some dripping out like little bungee jumpers over his eyebrows._

_“So the hats don’t bump,” he replies._

_“Bump? We look like Ash Ketchum.”_

_“Shut up, I have research to do.”_

“My first kiss?” Wonshik repeated, still chewing the same fish ball, minutes after Sanghyuk asked his question.

“Huh?” Clearly Sanghyuk had already forgotten their conversation from earlier. How long had Wonshik been chewing and reminiscing? “Oh, right. Did you remember?”

“Yeah,” Wonshik wheezed. “Fuck.”

 

 

Back on set, Wonshik had just selected Hongbin to be his model. Neither of them were yet sure what Hongbin was going to be modeling. It wasn’t in the script yet.

Hongbin was splayed out on Wonshik’s chaise, wearing a loose white tank top and basketball shorts.

“What made you go into photography?” Hongbin’s character, Dongjae, asks.

“When my father died,” Wonhik’s character, now named Minwoo, replies, editing photos on his desktop computer. Wonshik didn’t know how to edit anything, so he was just highlighting the same area of Hongbin’s collarbone with the highlight tool over and over again until it glowed like Heaven’s rays.

“Your father? Was he a photographer?”

“No, he was a landscape painter. But I was always shit with paints,” Minwoo says, and Dongjae laughs. But it sounded like Hongbin’s laugh, and Wonshik wanted to laugh with him. But he was Minwoo. And Minwoo wasn’t scripted to laugh.

Acting was hard.

“Why’d you choose to model then?” Minwoo follows up, glancing up over his screen to peek at Dongjae on his couch.

“Because some guy approached me at the mall and said he could make me rich. And it sure beats being a host.”

“Do you like it?”

Dongjae smiles, knowing Minwoo is watching him, and it was Hongbin’s smile with his soft plush little cheek dimples and straight white teeth. But his eyes were different. They were focused, brighter. Someone else’s eyes.

“Am I good?” Dongjae asks, and he is suddenly in front of Minwoo’s screen, suddenly peeling his tank top off, and Wonshik knew he had read the script but didn’t remember this part being in there, but they were still filming, so he said his next line.

“I can make you good,” he says, trying to have Minwoo’s eyes. Trying to see Dongjae in front of him like a slab of marble or a sheet of canvas or a model of clay. He blinks, slowly. Open. Close. Open. It was just skin. Just the skin of a character in a silly drama for housewives and moms. 

Dongjae’s hands are on Minwoo’s shoulders here, and he peers down at the screen, watching Minwoo work. These are the hands of a character. A kid who models because he is beautiful and because it pays the bills. A kid who needs praise.

And Wonshik had the shoulders of a man named Minwoo who takes pictures because he is lonely and because he knows photos can keep someone in place, frame them, for all eternity. You can’t slip away if you are static, stationary, trapped. It was like Wonshik with his music. Sound is something that evokes memory. Sound is something that will always be there, so long as you remember the tune, so long as someone can repeat it in their head.

“Do you ever take pictures of yourself?”

“What, you mean like selcas?” Minwoo asks.

“I mean, do you let people take pictures of you?”

“Why would they?”

“Because you have a face, and photos can be taken of it.” Dongjae lifts Minwoo’s Nikon off the desk and aims it at his face.

Minwoo shifts in his desk chair, shaking his head. “Stop, let me finish editing.”

“Why? You don’t like it?” he snaps a photo of Minwoo turning away.

He keeps pressing the shutter, over and over as Minwoo tries to hide under his arms, practically feeling the flash on his forearms.

“You’re wasting space on my camera.”

“Why is your face a waste, but not mine?”

“No one is paying to see my face.”

“Who cares?”

Minwoo tries to snatch the camera, and their hands touch. Dongjae leans down. His sharp nose is close to Minwoo’s. Too close.

Someone off set must’ve tried to take a photo, because the distinct sound of a phone camera shutter went off.

Suddenly the director was shouting cut, and the lights were coming back on, bright set lights, and some assistant was being berated about the phone and about her nondisclosure agreement, but Wonshik was Wonshik again and Hongbin’s hand was so soft under his on the camera.

Hongbin seemed to come back into himself, and then he was smiling at Wonshik.

“That was fun.”

 

The next week, the studio released a trailer of the drama with what small footage they had. It was mostly snippets of Hongbin shirtless and Wonshik holding a camera, but already there are thousands of likes on youtube and drama sites.

“Are most Starlights even old enough to watch this drama?” Hakyeon asked, sitting beside Taekwoon and Jaehwan on the couch, with Wonshik, Hongbin, and Sanghyuk flopped on the floor in front of the television.

“Hakyeon, it is on cable. Anyone can watch,” Jaehwan replied, patting Hakyeon’s knee from across the couch.

“Even with the…contents….as they are?”

“Are you talking about the nudity or the homoerotic undertones?” Sanghyuk said.

“Where did you learn those words?” Hakyeon glanced around the room, searching for a guilty look. “Who taught you those words, maknae?”

Taekwoon puffed out a breath of laughter, and Hakyeon leaned in close to his face. “I feel betrayed.”

Taekwoon pushed at Hakyeon’s tan cheek, smushing the skin up towards his eye. “It wasn’t me.”

Hakyeon tried to pinch back at Taekwoon’s pale cheek, but Taekwoon swatted him away repeatedly. Everyone else watched.

“They aren’t exactly _undertones_ anyhow,” Taekwoon mumbled.

“Yeah, pretty overt.”

Wonshik felt his ears heating up.

“Hasn’t the director given you some pointers on how to seem less awkward?” Jaehwan asked, jabbing Wonshik in the neck with his cellphone.

“What do you mean?” Wonshik asked, jerking around to swat at the phone.

“I mean,” Jaehwan said, rubbing the back of his head.

“You guys seem very…like yourselves,” Hakyeon finished.

“What does that mean? We aren’t sexy? We don’t seem sex-filled?” Wonshik croaked, not sure why he was so upset, but willing to fight to the death to defend his sex-ness.

“It’s just because we know you guys. You’re friends. There isn’t any…”

“Spark,” Taekwoon said, nodding slowly., pulling his loose gray cardigan around his sharp shoulders.

Hongbin was chuckling to himself, knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. Wonshik glared at him. _Es tu, Bin?_

“What does that mean anyhow? Spark?” Wonshik grumbled, remembering the feel of his spine against the slab countertop of the bar, the feel of Hongbin’s palms on his cheeks, the feel of soft pink--. “They just made that up for romcoms,” he spluttered.

“Well, honestly, this _is_ a romcom,” Hakyeon pointed out.

Hongbin laid a warm hand on Wonshik’s thigh. “We can work on it.”

Wonshik’s stomach flipped inside out and then exploded all over the inside of his meat-suit.

 

 

Wonshik remembered the first time he laid eyes on Hongbin. He remembered walking into the practice room in the old Jellyfish building, seeing Hakyeon, who he already knew as the try-hard older brother-type who would do literally anything to debut (like bleach his skin, to the dismay of his mother); and then seeing Jaehwan, the loud-mouthed, big-nosed ball of energy that filled the room with laughter; Taekwoon, the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, terrifying and yet beautifully soft-spoken boy who always sat alone until Hakyeon went over to bother him; and then him.

And then Hongbin.

Pale, frizzy mop-head Hongbin with his perfect v-line and little dimpled cheeks, wearing a baggy t-shirt and tight light-washed jeans.

“This is our visual,” their pre-debut company handler announced. “Kim Hongbin.”

“It’s Lee, actually,” Hongbin said, raising a small white hand.

            “Kim Lee? That doesn’t sound right,” their manager pondered aloud. “Is that your martial arts name?” He flipped through pages on his clipboard, brows furrowing.

            “Lee Hongbin,” Wonshik said, striding into the room after lingering in the doorway, trying for a grand entrance. “He means his name is Lee Hongbin.”

            The handler glanced down at his paper once more and shrugged. “Whatever. He’s pretty, right?”

            Hongbin flushed and stared down at his lap, but the flush wasn’t from the flattery. It was the flush of a small Chihuahua-like dog, preparing to launch his tiny, razor-sharp  fangs into the hand of some patronizing human hand.

            “You sing, right?” Wonshik asked, aiming to distract the Chihuahua-bin.

            Hongbin glanced up and smiled, so bright, blinding, like sunlight through a magnifying glass, fire burning Wonshik’s face as he stared directly at it. So dimply and warm.

            “Yeah,” he said. “I sing.”

 

 

            “Do you really think we have no spark?” Wonshik asked, tossing Hongbin the basketball.

            Hongbin stood by the net, hair illuminated under the streetlamp. It was just past 11 pm, the two of them unable to sleep before their early morning shoot the next day.

            “It’s just a drama. Plenty of actors don’t have real spark when they shoot romances. I mean, remember when Minho and Sulli had to pretend to like each other romantically? They’re like brother and sister, but they sort of pulled it off.”

            Wonshik winced. He didn’t want to be like MinSul. What a tragic fake romance.

            Hongbin shot the ball, and obviously it hit the rim and bounced away into the grass because neither of them were any good at basketball, they were Korean pop idols. As Hongbin jogged to go pluck the ball from the weeds, Wonshik let himself glance at Hongbin’s backside.

            Not like, his butt, but like, the back of his body. He had more muscle on his bones than he used to, which made Wonshik extremely self conscious. He was aware that he had lost quite a bit of weight lately, but he couldn’t help it. He was stressed, and food turned to mush in his mouth. But not a food-tasting mush. Like a dry, sand-textured mush.

            Hongbin bent down to grab the ball, and Wonshik glanced away quickly because he had maybe just a little bit eyed Hongbin’s actual backside.

            Hongbin turned on his heel and lobbed the ball at Wonshik, who was so stricken by his urge to see Hongbin’s butt again that he failed to put his hands up to catch it.

            The ball bounced off Wonshik’s forehead, and before he knew it Wonshik was tumbling backwards flat onto his ass on the concrete.

            “Fuck,” he heard Hongbin swear next to him. “You okay?”

            “Mmf,” Wonshik burbled, wanting to open his eyes but also desperately not wanting to open his eyes.

            He felt warm skin press to his cheeks, squishing them together, making his lips purse.

            “Wonshik, do you know who you are? What year is it? What is 8x3?”

            “You just said who I am, and I don’t normally know what year it is or any multiplication tables,” Wonshik grumbled, “remember I’m an idiot?”

            Hongbin rapped his knuckles against Wonshik’s forehead, making a hollow clicking sound with his tongue. “You’re right. Just hot air in here.”

            Wonshik bolted upright, head swimming, trying to swat at Hongbin, but instead he collapsed forward and almost retched all over Hongbin’s lap, sudden nausea burbling up in his esophagus like a geyser.

            Which was how he found himself with his face pressed against Hongbin’s thigh.

            God, it was so warm.

            Sort of sticky.

            With sweat.

            Sort of hairy but not too hairy. Just a light dusting of hair.

            Wonshik drew in a shaky breath.

            “Um,” Hongbin said, patting Wonshik’s back gently with a tentative hand. “You okay?”

            Wonshik didn’t want to move.

            “You smell like laundry,” he muttered, lips against Hongbin’s thigh, sniffing the hem of Hongbin’s shorts.

            “I’m glad? Hakyeon did a load this morning, and I slipped in a few items without him noticing,” Hongbin said.

            “Good strategy, Bin,” Wonshik replied, “Taekwoon always checks to make sure the clothes are all his before he puts them in the machine. What a stingy brat.” Wonshik had almost forgotten the placement of his lips against Hongbin’s inner-upper thigh when Hongbin shifted beneath his face.

            “Wonshik,” Hongbin said again, voice straining, “Can you sit up? It’s, um, well, it’s a little weird for you to be down there so long.”

            Wonshik cleared his throat, as if to say _sorry bro,_ and rolled off Hongbin onto his back on the concrete, staring up at the two faintly twinkling stars (or satellites) above them.

            “Sorry.”

            “Don’t worry about it. Your head okay? I must’ve hit you pretty hard.”

            “It’s fine. Probably just have a bruise for the coordis to cover up for a little while.”

            “Wonshik,” Hongbin repeated, exasperated.

            “You keep saying my name like you wanna ask me something.”

            Hongbin leaned over Wonshik, one hand on his chest, palm over the spot of sweat he’d accrued while playing. He didn’t move the hand, even after he felt the sweat, which meant he either didn’t notice it or he was so used to touching sweaty Wonshik that it didn’t register anymore. Was Wonshik always this sweaty? He made a mental note to apply antiperspirant to more parts of his body. 

            “You seem so awkward with me lately,” Hongbin said, face so close to Wonshik’s, with his long, dark lashes and porcelain skin. Wonshik could count his perfect pores from this distance, something they always shopped out in photos, but Wonshik felt they made Hongbin seem more real. His little pores.

            “Awkward? Why would I be awkward? You’re my best friend,” Wonshik muttered, gaze unfocused as he tried to mentally teleport away from this conversation.

            “Am I?” Hongbin asked, voice low, fingers playing with a fold in Wonshik’s wet shirt.

            “Of course you are.”

            “Is it about the drama? I’ll quit the part if it makes you feel weird. I’ll make them cast someone else. I don’t want you to be awkward with me anymore,” Hongbin explained.

            “I’m _not_ awkward _because_ it’s you,” Wonshik lied.

            “Wonshik.”

            “Stop just saying my name,” Wonshik groaned, rolling up to sitting somewhat shakily, his hands finding stabilizing ground against the rough concrete.

            “I don’t know what else to say,” Hongbin murmured, rubbing at his face, his now-short fringe tinged with sweat. Wonshik missed the long curls.

            “Hongbin,” Wonshik countered, speaking with his tongue before his mind had time to process, “you’re the only one I would want to film this dumb drama with, okay?”

            Hongbin looked taken aback, lips parting, Adam’s apple dipping and rising as he swallowed.

            “You sure? I’ll really quit if you want.”

            “Bin,” Wonshik groaned.

            “Okay, okay. I get it. Just don’t stop being my,” Hongbin sputtered, “my best friend.”

            He looked so cute then, so nervous, so utterly Un-Hongbin in his nervousness. Wonshik wanted to reach out and pat him on the head and tell him he was proud for bravely being so _un-bro_ right then, so open with emotions, for ignoring the _bro-code_ which specifies there must not be more than three consecutive rounds of dialogue referring to emotions.

            Hongbin started to smile, as if realizing what Wonshik was thinking, a slow spread of lips. The dimples appeared, tiny indents in that perfect face, and Hongbin looked up at Wonshik and said, “I’ll kill you if you do.”

            Wonshik’s stomach fell out of his butt onto the basketball court and sank deep into the Earth, melting up in the burning molten core.

 

           

            The next day on set, Hongbin and Wonshik were doing their best to maintain the semblance of best friendship they had tried to reestablish on the basketball court.

            Hongbin was offering Wonshik a slice of his sandwich, and Wonshik leaned in to bite the edge of crust that Hongbin pointed at his face because he didn’t want to eat it himself.

            “Okay, kiddos, let’s make some magic!”

            Hongbin sighed and dropped the sandwich, Wonshik’s lips still parted to take a bite.

He watched the ham and cheese flop down onto the table, a slice of cheese sliding out.

“Better get on set,” Hongbin said.

“Today’s script,” the director said, his hair done up in around fifteen hot pink rollers, clipped onto his scalp, holding his silver hair in place. “Just finished it fifteen seconds ago, but I’m pretty proud of this scene.”

Wonshik grabbed a copy of the script and scanned the first page.

Seemed pretty normal. Hongbin’s character, Dongjae, is locked out of his apartment in the rain and calls Wonshik’s character, Minwoo, over to help him break into his own house.

Wonshik was about to flip the page when the director clapped his hands together and called them onto the set.

“We’ll hold up cue cards, so don’t worry about getting the scripts all wet,” he called out, gesturing to the hoses poised above their giant fake apartment façade.

Wonshik was baffled. “You just wrote the scene, but we’re going to practice _with_ the rain?”

The director scoffed. “The mood will be all wrong if you are all dry! Let’s go! Action!”

Hongbin, now as Dongjae, stands in front of the apartment façade, his pale blue shirt sticking to his chest, his hair fallen into his face, everything soaking wet, and Wonshik could see him shivering.

He sprints on set, feeling the frozen drops of water seeping into his clothing, his skin, his hair.

“Dongjae, what?” he gasps out, grabbing Dongjae by the shoulders. “You called all of a sudden, and you just said to come, what’s wrong?”

Dongjae gestures to his door. “No keys.”

Minwoo gapes at him. “You called me here because you’re locked out? What am I supposed to do? I thought you were hurt or something.”

“’m wet,” Dongjae says droplets of water falling over his pink lips. “Cold.”

Minwoo rolls his eyes.

Page flip.

Wonshik had to keep glancing over at the cue cards after this point, having no idea what was coming next.

Walk to the window. Okay.

Minwoo and Dongjae walk to the window, and Minwoo ducks down to let Dongjae step onto his back to reach.

 

Wonshik saw Hongbin glancing at the cue cards as he balanced precariously on Wonshik’s back.

“Just a little higher,” he says, unsteadily.

Wonshik felt water getting into his eyes, stinging despite only being water.

“You’re heavy for a model.”

“You’re weak for a man.”

Wonshik was supposed to tip over, drop them both to the ground.

Minwoo falters, falling forward onto his hands, Dongjae dropping into a roll forward.

“Like I said,” Dongjae hisses, “Weak.”

“Can’t you just call your landlord?”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“You’re stubborn. Like a child, you know that?”

“You’re vastly unhelpful,” Dongjae says, standing back up, brushing off his dirty knees, as if that would clear them of the mud that had formed in the denim.

“Then why did you call me? Why do you always ask me to come do these stupid chores for you? We’re not even friends.”

Wonshik saw something flicker behind Hongbin’s gaze as he tried to maintain his character’s composure.

“You like me,” Dongjae says, with Hongbin’s voice.

“You’re a shitty person, a snotty brat,  and we’re not—I don’t—” Wonshik faltered as the crew slowly shifted the cards.

The cards finally flipped.

“I don’t like you,” Wonshik heard himself read, as if outside his body.

The cards flipped again.

Wonshik barely had time to register the words on the cards before Hongbin was rushing towards him, banging on his chest.

“You like me,” he urges, as Dongjae, voice cracking in a way that made Wonshik’s throat close up tight, “You wouldn’t come all these times if you didn’t. You wouldn’t run out here in the rain just because I called you. You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t. You’re delusional.” Wonshik couldn’t bring himself to cry out the words like he was meant to, like it said on the card, and instead he simply uttered them weakly, his whole body shaking with the effort. Wonshik couldn’t get himself to stay in character, but he fought through the scene.

Dongjae shoves Minwoo hard next, and he stumbles back against the building. The breath was knocked out of Wonshik’s chest.

“You’re delusional,” Dongjae says, still Dongjae. “If you think you don’t like me. I see the way you look at me.”

“I’m taking your picture. I have to look at you.”

“You look at me like you want me.” Those eyes, staring so hopefully, demandingly at him.

“I want you to shut up,” Minwoo says, his voice even weaker than before, Wonshik’s heart pounding so hard he couldn’t barely stand it.

Card flip.

“Then I’ll shut myself up.”

And then it was Hongbin’s body pressed up against his, Hongbin’s broad chest, Hongbin’s hands on his face, Hongbin’s lips—

No it's Dongjae. It’s Minwoo and Dongjae—

            No. It’s--

            Card flip.

            _[They kiss.]_

Hongbin’s lips on his, so soft, so warm, so wet with cool crisp water, and he tasted like Hongbin, like toothpaste and strawberry milk and hose water.

Wonshik’s hands came up to settle on Hongbin’s narrow waist, digging in, feeling muscle and flesh, and then he was kissing back.

And it clicked.

Hongbin’s tongue, swiping over his bottom lip, Wonshik gasping into his open mouth, water running between their mouths, Hongbin’s pruny fingers clasped to Wonshik’s face so tightly, as if he didn’t want to ever let go.

Hongbin slid his leg between Wonshik’s thighs against the wall, and Wonshik let out a soft sound that lingered in the air between them, pulling Hongbin closer against him, wishing he could burn their skin together, melt the flesh until it fused and Hongbin could never separate from him, never remove his lips from Wonshik’s.

Hongbin reacted to every sound Wonshik made, biting Wonshik’s lip, letting it slip between his front teeth, soft, grazing, his hands sliding into Wonshik’s wet hair, nails against his scalp, and Wonshik couldn’t help but react in turn. His hands sliding under the hem of Hongbin’s sopping wet shirt, feeling frozen skin that somehow still seemed to burn his hands, and Hongbin whined into his mouth at the touch of Wonshik’s hands.

Wonshik wasn’t sure how long the crew let them continue kissing, but when the director called cut, Hongbin pulled away from Wonshik sharply, and Wonshik’s lips were aching, swollen.

Hongbin wiped his mouth with his wet sleeve, and he was staring at Wonshik as if seeing him for the first time.

Wonshik wondered if Hongbin’s gaze was mirrored in his own eyes.

“Brilliant! _That_ is what we call chemistry, everybody! Take note!” the director called, and the hoses shut off above them.

Then it was just Wonshik and Hongbin, panting, standing, dripping in the middle of the set, fingers pressed to their sore, reddened lips.

 _Fuck_.

 

“Let me get this straight,” Jaehwan said, starting out as he always does, trying to establish his role as advisor, chopsticks frozen over his bowl of ramyun. “Hongbin did that to you?” He gestured a chopstick to Wonshik’s swollen, puffy lips. “Did he punch you in the mouth?”

“Yeah. With his _mouth_ ,” Wonshik replied, dropping his head to the table. “I can’t do this anymore, Jae, I’m going to lose it.”

“It looks like you’ve already lost it,” Jaehwan said, shaking his head and scooping noodles into his mouth. “To clarify, though, this _was_ on set, right? For the drama?”

Wonshik nodded, forehead dragging against the wood. “It was right there on the cue card. ‘They kiss.’”

“That’s all it said? Just ‘kiss?’”

Wonshik nodded again, letting out a deep sigh, one that resonated through his whole body like a hollow echo.

“But he…destroyed your mouth,” Jaehwan observed, broth spilling out of his mouth as he spoke.

“What are you saying?” Wonshik asked, picking his head up, but keeping his chin on the edge of the table, eyes wearily seeking Jaehwan for answers.

“I’m saying he could have just kissed you. Like mwah. And done. Cut.”

“Uh huh,” Wonshik said, sitting up now, nodding along as Buddha-Ken spoke. 

“But he didn’t. He went full _The Notebook_ on your mouth.”

“I didn’t see that movie, but I trust you. I’m guessing that means he made out with me.”

“First of all, you have totally seen that movie. I caught you on our shared Netflix account watching it one day. It’s the one where the old couple dies together at the end.”

Wonshik shook his head, pulse racing nervously. “Definitely haven’t seen it.”

“Yes you have. It’s the one with Rachel Mcwhatsername and Ryan Reynolds.”

“Ryan _Gosling_ , Jaehwan, _God_.” Wonshik slapped his hands over his mouth. Damn him and his love of romcoms and his constant need to beat Jaehwan at knowledge of American pop culture.

Jaehwan simply smirked and moved on. “Anyhow, he went full _The Notebook_ on your face, and the script didn’t say anything about that. So, that means something.”

“It does? I mean, of course it does.” He looked at Jaehwan and tried to read on his face what it could possibly mean. Jaehwan’s face...broth on his chin, his poorly self-makeup-ed face, his charming charismatic eyes... “Something like…” he trailed off, waiting.

“Like he wanted to make out with you, you fucking oaf,” Jaehwan finished, groaning. “I swear, sometimes I don’t know if you really are the Seme these days.”

“I have no idea what that word is, but I am definitely it, if you think I’m not.”

“Google it, Wonshik. Not now, though; we’re in public,” Jaehwan added frantically as Wonshik picked up his cellphone and opened a browser. “Please, Wonshik. Be a little more self aware.”

“Shh, don’t call me Wonshik,” Wonshik hissed, pulling his leather snapback down over his eyes and slouching down in his seat in the booth.

“Why? Do fans even know your birth name? I thought you were Ravi to them,” Jaehwan said dismissively.

“Don’t say that name either!” he cried, waving his hands out in front of him nervously.

“Okay, Uke then.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Wonshik repeated, genuinely needing to Google it.

“You don’t need to know what it means to understand that you are one,” Jaehwan said, nodding to himself and patting Wonshik on the forearm. “Anyhow, about Hongbin. Have you talked about the kiss at all?”

“Does that seem like something Hongbin and I would normally do?” Wonshik stared back blankly at Jaehwan until Jaehwan sighed.

“Does making out under some fake rain in front of an entire crew of people seem like something you and Hongbin would _normally_ do?” Jaehwan challenged.

Wonshik slumped further in his seat and moaned. “What do I do?”

“Talk to him.”

“Tell me what to _do_.”

“Talk to him, Wonshik.”

“I just need a sign!”

Jaehwan turned to the side for a moment and then lifted up his phone, a bold blinking message scrolling across the screen commanding: TALK TO HONGBIN ABOUT THE KISS, WONSHIK.

Wonshik almost flipped the table.

 

 

           

            When they turned up back on set the next week, however, the director was being taken away in handcuffs.

            “Um?” Wonshik asked, pointing at the three cops who were dragging away their now-egg-yellow-haired director.

            “Yeah, about that,” their manager said, scrolling through his phone, “turns out he wasn’t the actual director. He had just turned up on set and pretended to be the director, but the real director was in Canada with his wife, celebrating their anniversary.”

            “So,” Hongbin said, blinking, “he was just some random dude? Some random dude cast us?”

            “Well, the original director picked Wonshik,” the manager explained, “but this dude picked you, Hongbin. However, considering you signed a contract, you’re stuck.”

            “But the script?” Wonshik said, licking his dry bottom lip, thinking back to all those scenes they had shot, all that time he had spent staring at semi-naked Hongbin, all those times he had to rush off set to splash very, very cold water on his face.

            “All nonsense he made up. I mean, it has the same general plot, but he forgot to cast the lead actress.”

            “Lead…actress…” Wonshik muttered, wringing his hands, a sense of dread building in his gut.

            “Yeah, the model was supposed to be played by a girl. What a relief, right, Hongbin?”

            Hongbin and Wonshik shared a look.

            “Yeah,” Hongbin replied dryly, “relief.”

            With a flick of a match, something was lit inside Wonshik’s abdomen, something like a long, winding wick on a stick of dynamite.

            “Oh no,” Wonshik breathed out as a pair of long, thin, pale legs stretched out of a black cab.

            “Suzy!” the real director called out, running to help the actress out of her car.

            Hongbin’s eyes lit up, and his face immediately turned away from Wonshik’s to the direction of the legs.

            Wonshik watched it happen in horror. One second Hongbin was looking at Wonshik in utter confusion, and the next his eyes were bursting out of his skull, pulsing in the direction of the famed actress and her long, _feminine_ everything all up everywhere.

            “Oh God, no,” Wonshik moaned under his breath.

            His greatest rival had finally emerged.

            Suzy and the director rushed over to greet him and Hongbin.

            There was a spot of drool at the corner of Hongbin’s mouth.

            Wonshik lifted his hand to swipe it away when Hongbin stepped forward, lithe legs practically skipping towards her.

            “Suzy, I’m such a big fan, I’ve seen all your dramas, and I know all the moves to your songs, and I—”

            “Hi, I’m Wonshik,” Wonshik said, butting in and sticking his hand out towards Suzy. “Please take care of me.” He side-eyed Hongbin. “Sunbae.”

            Suzy glanced at his hand and then hesitantly reached out to shake it.

            Hongbin stuck out his hand too, his palms glistening with anxious sweat. “Please take care of me too, Sunbae.”

            “But mostly me,” Wonshik said as Suzy shook Hongbin’s hand, glancing between the two boys.

            Suzy’s brows pulled together, and she looked at the director. “Which one of them am I supposed to kiss again?”

            “I haven’t decided yet. I guess it depends who you have chemistry with,” the director admitted, rolling his script up in embarrassment. “Hongbin’s character was added, um, by accident.”

            Suzy rolled her eyes and swept her long hair over her shoulder. Hongbin stared at the cascading waterfall of silky dark hair.

            “Whatever,” she said, and Wonshik felt the urge to rip her hair off like a wig and toss it down some dirty sewer where it belonged. “Whichever one has the best abs. On screen. My last drama didn’t do that well. This one needs good abs. For ratings.” And then she walked off.

            Hongbin stared after her, star-struck, eyes following the rhythm of her individual ass cheeks moving in her jeans.

            Not that she had much of an ass.

            Wonshik glanced down, twisting his hips.

            Neither did he.

 

 

            Wonshik texted: A girl

            Sanghyuk: trying to play Pokemon is this important

            Wonshik: Suzy! Suzy!!!!

            Sanghyk, immediately: Where are you filming

 

            What felt like mere seconds later, Sanghyuk showed up on set, brandishing iced americanos. Wonshik plucked one up and sucked on the straw with a grimace, once again wishing to fill the cup with sugar and cream.

            “Where is she,” Sanghyuk asked, hair gelled up neatly, black t-shirt tight to his frame, gaze shifting around frantically, searching for his prize.

            Wonshik gestured with a bitter flourish over to Hongbin and Suzy, chatting it up by the food stand, where an old man was serving them spicy rice cakes and loudly declaring that they made a lovely couple and would produce beautiful children.

            Wonshik pictured Lee-Bae children, so shiny and pale and dimpled, and he wanted to sink to the Earth and never emerge.

            Suzy said something in reply, and suddenly Hongbin was lifting up the hem of his shirt, baring his beautiful porcelain abs, and Wonshik dribbled Americano all down his chin and shirt.

            “Damn, she’s good,” Sanghyuk said, nodding in admiration. “She’s been here…what?”

            “Thirty-seven minutes.”

            “Damn,” Sanghyuk said again, strolling over to them with the drinks.

            “Who’s this one?” she asked, jabbing a perfectly manicured finger at Sanghyuk.

            “This is our maknae. Hyuk.”

            She blinked up at him. “This. This is your maknae?”

            Wonshik felt insecure. Had he put in his insoles this morning?

            “Yeah, he’s huge, right?” Hongbin laughed, and Suzy laughed, and Sanghyuk laughed, and Wonshik wiggled his toes in his shoes, searching out his insoles.

           

            They were on set, Wonshik having his BB cream touched up, when he spotted Suzy and Hongbin in the corner again, chatting it up.

            Just chatting away.

            “Excuse me,” he said, stepping away mid-BB, and moving over towards the chatters as his coordi shouted after him about uneven application and _huge, unsightly pores_.

            “Hey,” he greeted, putting on a smile, “whatcha talkin’ bout?”

            “Stuff,” Suzy said, smiling up at Hongbin.

            “Uh huh,” Hongbin added, looking at her beautiful girl-face. “Stuff. Unimportant. Non-Wonshik stuff.”

            Wonshik felt like he’d been slapped by one of Hongbin’s soft, amazingly soft hands.

            _Non-Wonshik_ stuff.

            This was a new low.

            Bae Suzy had to go.

 

            “So it isn’t a gay drama,” Hakyeon said, chopping up onions beside Taekwoon in the kitchen, a frilly floral apron tied around his waist. “That’s great! Now the Starlights can watch.”

            Taekwoon sighed, in his own frilly floral apron. “Hakyeon, the Starlights were already going to watch. They aren’t babies.”

            Hakyeon ignored him and slid the chopped onions over.

            “I mean, there’s a girl now, so I guess, yeah,” Wonshik replied, watching Taekwoon meticulously chop some carrots.

            “That must be a relief,” Hakyeon said, being much less meticulous with his onions, rough chops stabbing down at their wooden table.

            Taekwoon was staring at Hakyeon’s hands moving, eyes wide and worried. Hakyeon ignored him.

            “She’s kind of a bitch,” Wonshik said, knowing he sounded petty but not caring.

            “Well, she’s famous, and she’s pretty; I’m sure she has grown to be a bitch because no one will ever leave her alone,” Hakyeon replied, sliding more roughly cut onions over to Taekwoon. He was still staring at the knife in Hakyeon’s hand with anxiety clear as day on his face.

            “Hongbin really likes her.”

            “Of course he does. Like I said. She’s famous and she’s pretty. You see her face everywhere. Cosmetic ads, commercials, billboards, music shows. Hongbin has a right to be star struck.”

            “Hongbin _likes_ her,” Wonshik emphasized bitterly.

            Hakyeon set his knife down, and Taekwoon let out a deep sigh of relief.

            “Is that what this is about?” Hakyeon grumbled. “Kim Wonshik. You aren’t a child.”

            Wonshik blinked. Had he said too much? “What—”

            “Hongbin is allowed to have other friends, you know,” Hakyeon said, clicking his tongue. “He’s a grown man, and he won’t be your best friend forever.” Well, that wasn’t exactly what Wonshik had meant, but, wait--

            “He... won’t?” Wonshik felt his face fall, as if melting off his skull, collapsing in a sad little pile on the floor. Taekwoon looked at him with eyes that said _not on my freshly polished floor._

            “One day he’ll get married, and his wife will be his best friend.”

            “Hakyeon,” Taekwoon said softly, setting his own knife down, sounding exasperated, as he often did around Hakyeon.

            Wonshik inched closer to the table, wanting to grab the knives off of it and stab himself in the chest repeatedly. That would feel better than picturing Lee Hongbin married and no longer being his best friend. The image of the Lee-Bae babies appeared behind his eyelids again as he blinked. So shiny! So pure! So hideous!

            “We all will be. We’ll get together with our wives and—”

            “Hakyeon,” Taekwoon said, raising his voice to just above a whisper.

            “We can take pictures and reminisce about old times—”

            “Cha Hakyeon, shut up!” Taekwoon said a third time, loud enough that his words rang in the walls of the small kitchen.

            Hakyeon looked like he’d been beaten with a frying pan.

            “You aren’t making him feel better,” Taekwoon muttered. “He looks like he’s about to cry.”

            “Am not,” Wonshik lied, pulling down his snapback and huddling into his frayed black sweater like a turtle.

            “Wonshik,” Taekwoon said, massaging his own temples in anguish, “if you’re upset about Hongbin paying all this attention to Suzy, why don’t you talk to him?”

            “Again with the talking,” Wonshik groaned. “You, Jaehwan, always on about the talking.”

            “Well,” Taekwoon said, “you know how I hate talking.”

            Wonshik nodded. He did. He knew that.

            “And here I am suggesting that you talk.”

            Wonshik nodded again. He was. He was doing that.

            “So that must mean it is the best option. The _only_ option.”

            Wonshik’s mouth went dry, his tongue turning to dirt, the kind of dirt that had seen and felt nothing but harsh summer sun for _years_.

           

 

            “Hey, uh. Binnie?” Wonshik ventured, after being subjected to watching a scene where Suzy and Hongbin ride a tandem bicycle and Huh Gak plays in the background as they laugh joyously.

            “Yeah?” Hongbin said, barely glancing up from his phone. Wonshik saw “Suzy is BAE” at the top of the screen. With a heart eyes emoji. He was texting Suzy. She was standing on the other side of the room, also texting. Probably Hongbin.

            “Can we, um, talk?” The words fell out of his mouth like dribble.

            Hongbin looked genuinely surprised, which he never did because Hongbin was always, always one step ahead.

            “Sure.”

            Wonshik grabbed Hongbin’s sleeve and tugged him off the set into their dressing room.

            “Are you, I mean, are we okay?” he said, fingering the hem of his loose, ratty black t-shirt.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Are we okay, Bin? You and me. As friends. Are we okay?”

            Hongbin drew in a deep breath. “Of course we’re okay. Why wouldn’t we be okay?” He reached to grab his phone from his pocket as it buzzed, but Wonshik swatted at his hand.

            “What the fuck?”

            “I’m talking.”

            “Uh huh, and I replied. Now let me get my text.”

            “Why? What does she have to say that is more important than what I have to say?”

            “You’re not saying anything.”

            Wonshik felt something he very rarely let himself feel.

            Angry.

            He hadn’t felt angry since their trainee days when he’d gone online and seen comments on his idol page saying he was a talentless idol rapper and didn’t contribute to Vixx’s sound.

            He’d learned to convert that anger into music. Or into jokes. Or into exercise.

            Which was why he was an over-worked, emotionally repressed bag of bones at the moment.

            “I am saying something,” he gritted out. “I’m saying you’re ignoring me.”

            Hongbin rolled his eyes and went to grab his phone again.

            Wonshik reached into Hongbin’s pocket first and took the phone, tossing it behind him onto the armchair where the coordis haphazardly threw their abandoned outfit choices.

            Hongbin moved to take it, but Wonshik blocked his way, arms held out at his sides.

            “Stop being a dumb fuck,” Hongbin said. “Let me get my phone.”

            Wonshik spun around and grabbed the phone, shielding it like a football, as Hongbin tried to rush past him.

            The screen lit up.

            SUZY IS BAE.

            God he was furious.

            He clicked the screen, lighting up the messages. What could this fantastically shimmery princess of femininity have to say that was better than what he had to say? Hongbin was fighting at his back, pulling at his shirt.

            “Stop! This is an invasion of privacy, Kim Wonshik! I’ll fucking rip your intestines out and strangle you with them!”

            “I’d like to see you try! You hate the sight of blood!” Wonshik cried back, eyes scanning the screen.

            His face burned.

            It was suddenly sweltering in their cramped dressing room. And the blood in Wonshik’s body dripped down to pool at his feet. He was numb. But burning. Burning numb.

            Hongbin’s hands beating at his spine no longer felt like anything at all.

            SUZY IS BAE: are u w/ him??

            SUZY IS BAE: did u say it yet???

            SUZY IS BAE: r u making out???

            SUZY IS BAE: if u dnt reply rn i m gonna assume ur making out!!

            SUZY IS BAE: omg take pics plZ

            SUZY IS BAE: how big is his dick

            SUZY IS BAE: he’s totally the bottom tho rite

            SUZY IS BAE: ok make sure u tell him tho n dnt just make out

            SUZY IS BAE: LOVE U BINNIIIEEEE BOO

 

            Hongbin stopped pounding at Wonshik’s back.

            Wonshik refused to turn around. His heart had morphed into some giant, pulsating thing out of his control, wreaking havoc on his chest cavity.

            “Tell me what?” Wonshik said.

            “W-what?”

            “Tell me what, Bin?”

            Hongbin stepped back, his steps unsure, almost stumbling.

            “If this is about some texts Suzy sent, she was joking. What did she say? She’s such a jokester.”

            Wonshik made himself spin around. Hongbin’s face was red, and there was a line of nervous sweat dripping from his left temple down to his jaw.

            “You’re my best friend, Hongbin,” Wonshik said, lips unsure even as they moved to form the words. “You can tell me anything.”

            “I can’t,” Hongbin said, frantically shaking his head. “Pretend you didn’t see. It was a joke.”

            Wonshik stepped forward, but Hongbin kept back-pedaling towards the door, tripping and falling backwards onto the couch.

            “What’s the point of being best friends if you don’t tell me everything?”

            Hongbin stared up at him from his back, head resting on a pile of abandoned shirts. He looked terrified in a way Wonshik had never seen before.

            “You won’t be my best friend anymore,” Hongbin said, “This isn’t a bro thing. This is very un-bro. I promise you don’t want to hear it.”

            Wonshik kneeled onto the couch, knees on either side of Hongbin’s body, and Hongbin looked so frozen in fright, so utterly terrified that he couldn’t move.

            “Three rounds,” Wonshik said.

            “What?”

            “We get three rounds of dialogue to be un-bro.”

            “Wonshik, those aren’t real rules. This is different,” Hongbin protested, arching up as if he wanted to escape.

            Wonshik pushed him down, palms heavy on Hongbin’s shoulders.

            “Round one. Me, asking you to explain what is happening, how you are feeling. Now you.”

            “Wonshik--”

            “Round two,” Wonshik growled, hands shaking with the effort to hold Hongbin down against the cushions.

“Okay. Round two,” Hongbin said, voice quivering, “We made out.”

Wonshik watched Hongbin nip at his bottom lip, worrying at the thin skin anxiously.

“Round three,” Wonshik said. “You again.”

Hongbin shook his head, eyes wide. “No. You’re round three. You.”

Wonshik hovered his face over Hongbin’s, his hands sliding up Hongbin’s throat, fingertips gentle. Hongbin shivered.

“Round three,” Hongbin whispered, eyes on the back cushions, avoiding Wonshik’s face. “I want to do it again.”

Wonshik was shaking. Hongbin was shaking. Wonshik was surprised the couch wasn’t being drilled into the floor with the certain jackhammering of shudders coming from their bodies.

Hongbin shifted, trying to get away as Wonshik didn’t reply.

Wonshik held him in place with his thighs tight around Hongbin’s waist.

“Okay, it’s over. Un-bro time is over,” Hongbin begged, but Wonshik simply moved his hands into Hongbin’s hair, feeling the soft, straight-ironed strands between his fingers.

“Again,” Wonshik repeated, leaning down, turning Hongbin’s head so he was directly beneath Wonshik.

Hongbin let out a shuddering breath, and Wonshik felt it ghosting over his lips. He’d never felt anything so intimate in his life.

“Again,” Hongbin said, lifting up to join their lips together.

And that was when Wonshik lost it.

He tore away from Hongbin’s lips to grab his shirt, yanking at it, trying to get at Hongbin’s skin. He needed to feel it under his fingertips, his palms, his wrists, his forearms. He needed to touch it with his lips and tongue.

Hongbin let him tug his shirt away, he let the material slip from his fingers down to the floor to join the other articles of clothing in heaps. God they were a mess.

Wonshik began kissing any inch of skin he could find with his lips. Hongbin’s neck, his jaw, his cheeks, his shoulders, his collarbone, his chest. He kissed the abs that had flattened into nothing with Hongbin laying down on his back, though they flexed and jumped under Wonshik’s touch.

“A-Ah,” Hongbin gasped, hands fisting into Wonshik’s hair.

The sound was like nothing Wonshik had ever heard before. It was better than any porn or any song or any rap.  

Wonshik reached for Hongbin’s belt.

“Wonshik, wait,” Hongbin said, bringing Wonshik back into the moment.

“What? I’m...should I not?”

            “You still...your shirt,” Hongbin said, flushed, hair all mussed, pupils blown.

            Wonshik quickly glanced down and tore his own shirt off, baring his chest, his slightly protruding ribs, his sharp hipbones.

            “Oh fuck,” he said, suddenly remembering he wasn’t hot.

            “Shuttup,” Hongbin replied, knowing exactly what he was thinking, grabbing Wonshik by the hair again and tugging him down to kiss again.

            It was familiar but also so new, the feeling of Hongbin’s mouth on his, the feeling of his tongue licking into his mouth, the deep way Hongbin sighed when Wonshik moved in a way he liked, when Wonshik dragged his hands up Hongbin’s sides, nails gliding up slowly, leaving little raised red lines in their wake.

            Wonshik knew he was already hard. It wasn’t surprising at all to him, considering the way Hongbin was eagerly pulling him closer and closer, unable to get enough of him, as if his bony frame were somehow the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered.

            “You’re the sexiest,” Hongbin gasped into his mouth at that exact moment, “the sexiest, ugh, fucking!”

            Hongbin pressed his palm against the front of Wonshik’s jeans, and Wonshik shook, collapsing forward onto his hands.

            “Shit,” he hissed between his teeth. “God, don’t...don’t stop.”

            Hongbin was watching him, his hand moving, his lips touching to Wonshik’s chest, his tongue circling one of his nipples like it knew what to do.

            And fuck did it ever.

            Wonshik rocked against Hongbin’s touch, his cock straining at the front of his jeans, and Wonshik wouldn’t have been surprised if Hongbin’s sweaty palms hadn’t been dyed blue from the friction.

            “I can’t,” Wonshik breathed, grabbing Hongbin’s wrist, though Hongbin fought him. “More.”

            Hongbin grabbed Wonshik by the thighs, hands at the cusp of the backs of his knees, and he lifted, strength something Wonshik would never have even imagined coming from his Hongbin-- _his Hongbin_ \--but suddenly Wonshik was on his back.

            Hongbin grabbed Wonshik’s belt.

            “That is supposed to be me,” Wonshik protested. “On the top. Up there.”

            Hongbin laughed, his favorite dry sound. His hands expertly pulled away at Wonshik’s belt and then unfastened his jeans, and then they were at his ankles. And then everything was at Wonshik’s ankles. And he was bare.

            And Hongbin was staring at him.

            Oh, if this wasn’t the most un-bro thing to ever occur in the history of the bro-code.

            Wonshik’s cock, pressed up against his thin abdomen, beads of precum at the head, Hongbin staring at it like he was meeting a new friend. A new best friend.

            “H-Hong...bin,” Wonshik said, swallowing down a thick mouthful of arousal at the sight of Hongbin curling his pale pretty fingers around the base of his cock.

            Wonshik jerked.

            “Oh.”

            Hongbin slid his fingers up the flushed skin, working them over Wonshik like he knew what Wonshik wanted, like he just knew it, like it was programmed inside him, along with ‘breathe’ and ‘make sure Wonshik’s socks match today or hound him about it.’

            “This,” Hongbin said, watching his own hand move as he licked his lips, “is fun.”

            Wonshik bucked up into Hongbin’s hand, wrecked.

            “I want to,” Hongbin added, eyes still watching his own hand. “With my mouth.”

            Wonshik had had some filthy dreams in the past, he will admit. And maybe, if he was honest, some of them had featured a familiar set of lips and a familiar pair of dimples, but never in the history of those filthy dreams had Hongbin ever said anything nearly as filthy as ‘I want to with my mouth.’

            Before Wonshik could do anything more than nod like an eager pervy schoolboy, Hongbin was lowering his mouth to the tip of Wonshik’s cock.

            Wonshik’s eyes were wide, his hips straining to keep from just launching up at Hongbin’s face.

            Hongbin looked so pleased as he wrapped his lips around Wonshik’s cock, feeling his heated skin on his tongue, sliding his mouth down until Wonshik could feel the back of Hongbin’s tongue, could feel the strain in Hongbin’s throat. It was the tightest, wettest, messiest feeling in the world, and Wonshik had no idea why people weren’t just doing this all fucking day all the time.

Wonshik wanted to remember this feeling forever. If somehow Hongbin snapped out of this strange sexy trance at that moment and decided he wanted to stop, Wonshik wanted to be able to remember this feeling with Hongbin’s eyelashes fanned over his sharp cheeks, his lips stretched around Wonshik, his tongue trying desperate to do literally anything with the weight of Wonshik’s cock over it.

“Fuck,” was all he could say, though, and it didn’t seem like Hongbin was going to stop.

Hongbin moved his hand back, moving along with his mouth, and Wonshik started pushing at Hongbin’s head, writhing helplessly against the cushions as the pleasure sparked unbearably hot inside him. “Bin, I, Bin, I’m going to--”

            Hongbin slid his mouth slowly away from Wonshik’s skin, and Wonshik drooped back against the couch.

            “You want me to stop?” Hongbin’s lips were so obscenely red, his cheeks so beautifully pink, his hair matted with sweat to his forehead.

            “No,” Wonshik said. He swatted at Hongbin when he tried to move back down. “But I want it...um.” He searched for the word. “Reciprocal?”

            “Together?” Hongbin offered.

            Wonshik nodded slowly.

            “Kiss me,” Hongbin commanded.

            Wonshik lifted up onto his knees, fumbling with Hongbin’s belt again, Hongbin helping him ease his jeans down, ease his boxers down, ease both of their hands down until they were wrapped around both of their cocks as if this wasn’t so intimate that Wonshik could explode right then and there. And he didn’t mean explode like cum. He meant explode like burst into millions of tiny shards of meat.

            Their fingers brushed as they worked over their skin together, and Wonshik moaned into Hongbin’s mouth, arching against him as the pleasure built up low in his body again.

            “You feel so nice,” he heard himself gasp, such embarrassing words.

            Hongbin laughed.

            He did, though. His skin was so soft, just _everywhere_. It was hard to explain. His cock was hard, but the skin slid so nicely between his hand, especially when their precum mixed in their palms, easing the glide of their palms. Disgusting, dirty, and--

            “God,” Hongbin said, nipping at Wonshik’s lips. “So fucking hot.”

            Wonshik agreed. It was so fucking hot.

            “I mean you,” Hongbin said, knowing.

            Wonshik dropped his forehead to Hongbin’s shoulder as the pleasure became almost too much. He kept his hand moving, picking up some pace, trying to get Hongbin to the same level as him, trying to even their playing field somehow.

            Hongbin was shaking too, Wonshik noticed. His body was coated in a thin sheen of sweat that tasted like Hongbin’s shower gel and also lots of salt. He was rutting into Wonshik’s hand, seeking more and more friction in the same way Wonshik was.

            “Kiss me, you dumb fuck,” Hongbin groaned, grabbing Wonshik by the hair again as they ground against one another, trying to keep their hands moving, tongues touching for brief moments, Wonshik feeling a numb but strangely erotic pleasure from the feeling of Hongbin tugging at his hair.

            “I love when you tell me I’m a dumb fuck,” Wonshik moaned back, mouth open and breath heavy between them.

            “Mine,” Hongbin said between kisses, their bodies just a tangle of arching, rocking, bucking friction. “My dumb fuck.”

            “Ah, fuck,” Wonshik pathetically whined, free hand digging its nails into Hongbin’s bicep. “I’m--”

            “Okay,” Hongbin said, nodding, “okay.”

            Wonshik had never felt a release like that before. He’d never felt so wrecked, like Hongbin had sucked his whole being from his body and then dropped it back in as quickly as humanly possible with no warning whatsoever, and all the pieces were in the wrong place, like Hongbin put a bunch of puzzle bits into a cup and shook them all up and shot them out onto the table like Yatzee, but they felt so damn right being so wrong, and everything was shaking and moving and then it was not.

            Wonshik felt his cum sliding over his own fingers, and it was disgusting but also so fucking hot, just like this whole moment, and Hongbin didn’t stop moving for a second until it was utterly too much, utterly too too much for anyone to handle.

            Wonshik cried out, gripping onto Hongbin feebly, though he tried to keep his hand moving.

            “It’s okay,” Hongbin said again.

            “No,” Wonshik urged.

            Hongbin chuckled softly and wrapped his hand around Wonshik’s on his own cock, the both of them stroking so perfectly together that Hongbin fell apart almost immediately. Wonshik’s thumb slid over the head of Hongbin’s cock, and Hongbin groaned a low and demanding sound until Wonshik did it again, and then he came.

            Wonshik tried not to stare, but it was just so fascinating to watch Hongbin shudder, his facial features twisted up in a way that Wonshik had never seen and could only describe as looking somewhat ugly--

            But when his eyelids fluttered back open, and Hongbin reached up to brush Wonshik’s fringe from his face, Wonshik couldn’t remember Hongbin ever looking any more beautiful.

            “Well, shit,” Hongbin said.

           

            The first episode of the drama aired, and the six of them sat around in a circle to watch.

            “Suzy,” Sanghyuk sighed dreamily as her character sobbed dramatically on scene.

            “Her character is a bitch,” Wonshik said.

            “She plays a bitch very well,” Hongbin replied, fingers dancing over Wonshik’s thigh under a thick wool blanket.

            “Because she is one.”

            Hakyeon shushed them as Huh Gak began playing again.

            “What happened to all the scenes you guys shot that weren’t in the original script?” Jaehwan asked, dipping his hand into the shared bowl of kettle corn.

            Wonshik and Hongbin shared a nervous glance.

            “I have...no idea.”  
            “Did that guy just--”

            “Did he just take footage of you guys flirting and kissing for himself?”

            “You know what that sounds like right,” Taekwoon said softly from the edge of the couch, his eyes on their blanket like he knew there was debauchery beneath its soft wooly surface.

“No,” Wonshik hissed.

“Like P--”

“PROPERLY ACTED THEATRICS,” Wonshik cried as Hongbin’s palm cupped over his crotch and pressed down gently.

Everyone turned to stare at Wonshik as the credits for the episode rolled.

“Well, it’s no _Boarding House 24_ ,” Jaehwan said, clicking to another channel. “But I guess you guys are doing ok.”

“Thanks, Jae,” Hongbin said dryly, hand still working over Wonshik’s now half-hard cock. “That means a lot to us.”

“Maybe if they release the bonus footage of you guys going at it, they’ll get better ratings,” Sanghyuk added.

Hakyeon threw kernels of unpopped kettle corn at him. “Maknae, please! The Starlights!”

Sanghyuk went onto the fan cafe and screenshotted the top comments on _Depth of Focus_ ’ premier. “I don’t think you understand how fucking perverted Starlights can be, hyung.”

“Ahem” he said, lifting a finger, “‘Wow, oppas have such spark! Suzy is useless in this drama! They should get rid of her and just--’ wait a second.”

“Aha, that’s funny,” Wonshik declared loudly, hips circling against Hongbin’s hand under the blanket, forehead clammy with sweat. “What an astute comment from an everyday Starlight.”

“Wonshik,” Sanghyuk said, eyes narrowed.

“What’s their username?” Taekwoon asked, eyeing the blanket again.

“I bet it’s ‘everyday baby starlight 62,’” Wonshik cried helplessly, voice growing hoarse as he tried not to moan aloud.

“It’s ‘RaviAesthetic69,’” Sanghyuk said before bursting out laughing.

Hongbin’s hand stopped moving.

“ _Really_?”

Wonshik whimpered.

“I was gonna make it WonBin69 but that was already taken,” Wonshik muttered.

Hongbin’s lips spread into a slow, sexy smile, fully dimpled and bright.

“Those Starlights are onto something,” he whispered, leaning in close to Wonshik’s ear. “WonBin69 sounds perfect right about now.”

Wonshik jolted up from under the blanket, sending it tumbling over Jaehwan’s head where he sat at the foot of the couch. “I suddenly have an idea for a song! No! Twelve songs! A whole album! I need to go!”

He bolted for the door, but stopped when Hongbin didn’t follow. He peeked around the edge of the doorjamb.

“Hongbin...won’t you...come...help?” he added, hovering in the doorway.

Hongbin tilted his head back and laughed, a full-bodied, amazing sound that filled every crevice of Wonshik’s body with light.

“Yeah, I’ll come,” he said, running to catch up to Wonshik as he headed out the door.

“You bet your pretty little ass you will,” Wonshik said as they practically sprinted to Wonshik’s tiny, cramped studio room.

“ _My_ pretty little ass?” Hongbin countered, pressing Wonshik up against the door once it had closed behind them. “Oh, no, Kim Wonshik. It is _your_ pretty little ass that is on the line here.”

Wonshik moaned, head tilted back against the thick metal, soundproof door.

“Jaehwan was right.”

Hongbin leaned in a licked the shell of Wonshik’s ear as he yanked at Wonshik’s basketball shorts. “Let’s not talk about Jaehwan right now.”

“Okay,” Wonshik said, pulling Hongbin in closer, “no more talking.”

 

 

           

           

           

           

           

           

           

           

           

           

 

           

 

 

 

 

           

           

           

 

           

 

           

 

 


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